The clothes dryer can be divided into an exhaust type clothes dryer and a condensing type clothes dryer depending on how moist air generated while drying target items to be dried is processed. In the former type clothes dryer, the moist air discharged from the dryer is exhausted, while in the latter type dryer, the moist air discharged from the dryer is condensed to deprive of moisture and the moisture-free air is re-circulated.
In general, in the clothes dryer, air heated to a high temperature by using heater is blown into a drum so that the air at high temperature can absorb moisture from target items to be dried, thus performing the drying process.
The related art clothes dryer in which heat is transferred to introduced air by using a heater is advantageous in that the overall drying time can be shortened by quickly heating air by means of the heater and the dryer can be fabricated with a larger capacity, but has shortcomings in that much energy is consumed to heat the introduced air by using the heater. In particular, because the target items are dried with air at a temperature of 100° C. or higher, there is a high possibility that the target items to be dried may be damaged during the drying process depending upon the material.
Meanwhile, the condensing type clothes dryer does not need an exhaust duct for discharging air, so it can be advantageously fabricated as a built-in type dryer. Also, it has a higher energy efficiency compared with the exhaust type clothes dryer but is disadvantageous in that it takes a long time to dry target items and because it has large capacity, it is not easy to fabricate it.
Therefore, an improved clothes dryer that may have a high energy efficiency and does not damage target items to be dried is in demand.
In addition, the improved clothes dryer is expected to have good assembly characteristics and mass-productivity in order to reduce the fabrication cost and increase productivity.